“I’m Just Ken” almost had a much smaller role Greta Gerwig’s record Barbie.
In a new featurette promoting the film’s release on streaming, Gerwig, music producer Mark Ronson, Ryan Gosling, Ncuti Gatwa and more members of the cast and crew talked about the making of the now-popular song. It portrays the climax of the storyline as the Kens battle on the beach of Malibu.
“It went from this song that might be played somewhere in the movie, to this song that they built this epic battle around,” Ronson said, explaining that when Gerwig asked him to write Gosling’s Ken song, he “immediately knew” what it should be.
Once he wrote the first draft, Gerwig wanted more. “(She) says, ‘We love that song — can you actually make it longer?’” he explained. “So we’re essentially scoring 11 minutes around Ken’s song.
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Elsewhere in the three-minute video, the writer-director shared that she was inspired by the Nutcrackerthat she loved growing up.
“The battle between the toy soldiers and the rats, the absurdity of it, that’s something I was thinking about when we created this battle,” said the Oscar nominee.
Gosling and Gatwa, who play two different Kens in the hit film, explained how the men in the long scene towards the end of the film don’t quite understand what they’re doing and their opinions on what fights are or how they work.
are very limited.
“They don’t have any information about what war is,” Gosling said. “It’s like the real-world telephone game. It’s distorted by the time it gets back to them, and they’re just doing the best they can, but it’s really the worst.
Barbie is now available for rent online.
